Ted Grant

Labour To Power

With cunning calculation the Tories have decided to
precipitate the election, at a time when the full results of their policy will
not be apparent to the mass of the people. The 8 years of Tory Government have
been similar to the 8 years of disguised Tory rule under the National
Government from 1931 to 1939. That period ended in catastrophe. What will the
result of a further period of Tory rule? The joy of the Stock Exchange sharks
and take-over merchants at the prospect of Tory continuance in power is the
answer to that.

The Tory Party is the Party of Big Business and the
monopolies never have they “had it so good”. Profits have risen, while the
taxation of super profits has dropped. Prices of food and raw materials
imported into Britain dropped by 8 percent in 1958. But the prices of food, and
other necessities still continued to rise in the shops. Who derived the
benefit? Naturally the paymasters of the Tory Party, the millionaires, the
monopolies: Big Business.

Fortunes involving millions and tens of millions of pounds
are being made in take-over bids, property deals, and share manipulations.
Through rigged expense accounts the directors of big firms dodge income tax and
conceal their real incomes. All this wealth has been created by the labour of
the working people. They have derived very little benefit from it. In the last
five years standards of living have risen far faster in Eastern Europe than in
Britain.

Industry in the last few years has been virtually stagnant.
Production has been only 80 to 85 percent of capacity! In their greed for
profits the capitalists have not produced goods to the tune of £3,000 million
last year alone. Production is not for the benefit of producers but for the
owners of capital. If more clothes, food, building materials and machinery to
the amount stated above were to be produced it could mean the raising of the
standard of living, helping the old people, re-housing the slums, improving the
social services, modernising machinery and factories, hospitals and schools.
Britain could be transformed.

The Tories are not interested in maximum production, only
the maximum profit. But it would be wrong to accuse the Conservatives of being
only the party of the industrialists, they are also the representatives of the
landlords! Hence the Rent Act which
gave £200 million a year to the landlords in increased rents. No wonder the
Institute of Directors, the Steel barons and the capitalist press have
conducted a campaign against nationalisation. They have what amounts to a
lovely racket. The Big Steel capitalists the bankers, insurance tycoons and
monopolies make millions. Even the Times
has admitted that the biggest share of the profits of industry go to a handful
of giant monopoly concerns. They are all meshed together with the Tory Party in
Parliament. Many of the Directors sit on each others’ boards and as Tory M.P.s
as well.

They pursue a shameful campaign of misrepresentation,
distortion and downright lies, pretending that they wish to defend “freedom”
when it is the right to exploit they are defending. At the same time they milk
the State for their own benefit. Only the profitable parts of Steel and Road
Transport wore denationalised. The railways and other derelict industries are
left as a burden on the State as a whole. The Steel Companies receive huge
subsidies. The Cunard shipbuilding concern is asking for a subsidy, the
Aircraft industry is subsidised. The State provides the money the capitalists
make the profits. Atomic energy is nationalised. but private firms are provided
with lucrative contracts for the supplying of equipment to the atomic
establishments and other nationalised under-takings, the railways, electricity,
drugs for the hospitals and prescriptions under the National Health Scheme.

The Tories according to their own statements have now become
the Party of Peace. But their actions demonstrate that they are concerned
solely with the interests of British Imperialism. The war on Suez, the
suppression of the people of Cyprus and Nyasaland show their real motive. The
Arms bill amounts to £1,500 million per year, 10 percent of the national
income. This means that the average family pays £2.10s.0.
[A] per
week. Also there must be taken into account the waste of resources which could
be used for productive purposes. This could add immensely to the real wealth of
the country.

Now the suggestion is made that Summit Talks, with
Macmillan, Eisenhower and Khrushchev will inaugurate a new epoch of lasting
Peace. But all the conferences and agreements between the Powers for the past
hundred years have always ended in catastrophe. The First and Second World Wars
were preceded by endless Conferences. The cause has not been the wickedness of
this or that individual statesman, but the impasse in which the capitalist
system has been involved. The capitalist states have endeavoured to solve the
problem at each others’ expense by force. Agreements between the Powers can
only be temporary truces, so long as the basic causes of war have not been
removed. The private ownership of the means of production of factories, banks,
insurance companies, cement, docks and other means of life, mans that the
producers do not receive back in wages sufficient to buy back all the goods
produced. This causes the capitalists to compete for markets at home and abroad.
Above all hangs the menace of the H-Bomb if the problem of war is not solved.

What future can there be under the Conservatives in the next
period? They have been lucky in the changing of the terms of trade in favour of
Britain. But this situation cannot endure forever. As soon as the economic
situation changes the real face of Toryism will be exposed. Once the election
is won they can launch attacks on those sections not yet affected by the change
in the Rent Acts; attacks on the rights of the Unions have been threatened;
they can then turn on the middle class, professional people and small business
people they claim to represent.

The Labour Movement with all its faults has been built by
the pennies and sacrifices of the workers. It is responsive to the pressure of
the workers. The class-conscious workers will bear the brunt of the attacks of
the Tories. Let they bend all their efforts for a Labour victory.

The Tories are boasting about the number of television sets
and second-hand cars there are in Britain at the present time. But beneath the
surface prosperity lies the under-lying insecurity and anxiety of the people.
The people are producing more in proportion than pre-war. Consequently the
employers have increased the profits wrung from the workers. And the real
inequalities remain even more than before. If some of the workers can buy
second-hand Fords, it means that the employers can buy Bentley and Rolls
Royces. This Government remains the Government of privilege and inequality.
While luxury flats are going up housing remains meagre. After a lifetime of
toil the workers in their old age are left to rot on a semi-starvation diet.
The real outlook for the workers is shown by what has happened to cotton and
coal. Yesterday they were demanding more workers for the mines, now they are
closing the pits. Yesterday they were exhorting the workers to greater
endeavour in cotton, now they are making 50,000 redundant. The employers
receive £30 million in compensation for scrapping machinery, the workers
receive £4 million. The workers receive £80 a head on the average after years
of toil. Eleven directors replaced in take-over bids receive from £20,000 to
£50,000 in compensation. A slight difference!

Now automation, which should be a means of increasing
leisure and standards of living, threatens the jobs of engineers, office
workers and other sections of the people! Isn’t it time to get rid of the
authors of these misfortunes? A world of Security and Plenty, 0f peace and
prosperity can only be secured by the overthrow of the capitalist system and
the inauguration of a democratic Socialist Britain.